Sweden's Rolf-Goran Bengtsson headed the line-up at the seventh leg of the FEI World Cup Jumping series in Mechelen, Belgium when scorching to victory with Mac Kinley in the Land Rover Grand Prix.

Course designer Lucien Somers set them a tough test over his 13-fence track and Rolf-Goran said "the oxers were big and wide with some tricky distances so it was quite difficult in the first round".

The tall planks at the third element of the treble combination at fence 10 hit the floor many times as the later part of the course took its toll, and many of the most likely contenders paid the price for a single error including Holland's Eric Van der Vleuten and Audi's Jikke, winners at the opening leg of the current series in Helsinki in October.

Unluckiest of all perhaps was Bruno Broucqault who left all the poles in place but picked up just a single time fault with Hooligan de Rosyl but, as it turned out, that was good enough to secure sixth place at the end of the day as only five riders went into the jump-off and the Frenchman now shares equal-ninth position on the World Cup standings leaderboard with Malin Baryard.

The World Cup standings are now headed by Jos Lansink whose runner-up placing in Mechelen has boosted his position. Eric Van der Vleuten lies second with Germany's Marco Kutscher in third and all three of these riders now look well-qualified for the final in Milan next April while Olympia winner Helena Weinberg (4th), Michael Whitaker (5th) and double-World Cup winner this season, Thomas Velin (6th), also look comfortably in touch with a qualifying place.

For further information on Mechelen visit website www.jumping-mechelen.com

The next leg of the FEI World Cup Jumping series takes place in Leipzig, Germany on 25 January. For all press-related enquiries about Leipzig please contact Kerstan Media Networking at Mobile: ++49 430 782 7970, Email: info@kerstan.de.. Website for Leipzig is: www.engarde.de.

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